How to Trust Your Body by Learning to Listen Again

I sat down to write this blog knowing that I wanted to continue exploring trust, but I just could not get into it. I had done some keyword research, had plenty of ideas and could probably have made myself write something, but I felt unsettled and none of it felt quite right.

So instead of carrying on, I went for a walk.

The weather looked beautiful through the window and, rather unusually for Ireland, it was actually as beautiful when I got outside. I carried on listening to Lee Harris’s Future Human, and he started talking about how trust feels in the body and working with that feeling. I also came across the most beautiful leaf on the pavement that I have used for the blog image.

There I was, trying to work out what I wanted to say about trusting your body, when I had already listened to mine by getting up from the computer and going outside. It made me wonder how often our body is communicating with us and we forget to listen.

Your body knows before your mind does

We can spend a lot of time in our heads. We think about how we feel, analyse why we feel it and decide whether we should feel it. Meanwhile, there is an actual feeling happening in our body that we may barely have noticed.

And this applies to the feelings we enjoy as much as the ones we do not. How often do you notice what happens in your body when you see someone you love, walk into a place you enjoy being, hear a favourite song or pick up something that means a lot to you? My two cuddly chaps, Ted the bear and Arthur the dragon, bring me so much joy and back to love when I pick them up. Giving them a hug is a great tiny reset when James is not available for a hug!

When something feels good, there may be nothing to work out. We can simply let ourselves experience it and allow the energy to move through us. Love can feel like love, joy can feel like joy and trust can feel like trust.

It often gets more complicated when we have a reaction. Something feels uncomfortable, tight, heavy or just off, and our mind immediately wants to know why. Or we dismiss the feeling because we cannot explain it. How often have you felt something about a person, place or situation before you had any idea why?

Your body knows before your mind does. Perhaps we can give it a little more space to tell us what it knows.

Learning how trust feels to you

If we want to trust our body when we are making choices or navigating something difficult, it helps to get to know how different feelings actually feel to us when there is nothing big at stake.

You could start with something you love in your home. Pick it up, look at it and notice what happens in your body. Where do you feel the love for it? Does anything change in your breathing, your chest, your stomach or somewhere else? There is no correct response to find. You are noticing your response.

You could do the same with trust. Think about someone you really trust, somewhere you feel completely at ease or something in your life you have absolute trust in. Instead of thinking about why you trust them, notice how trust feels in your body.

This is something we can practise in everyday life. We can notice our reactions to different people, places and things without having to immediately analyse them or decide what they mean. Over time, we become more familiar with ourselves and how our body communicates with us.

Trust starts with remembering to listen

Looking back, that is exactly what happened when I sat down to write this blog. I felt unsettled. I could have carried on pushing myself to write, but instead I went for a walk. I felt better for getting outside and stopped trying so hard to work everything out.

I did not need to understand why I felt unsettled before responding to it. I noticed how I felt and trusted myself enough to do something different.

So perhaps there is a simple question to take with you today: What am I feeling in my body right now, and have I actually been listening?

Experience trust in your body

In the video below, I take this further and explore how we can begin connecting with the feeling of trust in the body.Rather than giving you more to think about, it gives you the opportunity to pause, practise listening to your body and experience what trust feels like for you.

If you would also like to explore trust through energy, I have a Light Language activation for experiencing trust rather than trying to think yourself into trust in my previous blog, 

Trusting yourself when you don't know what comes next

The more we remember to listen in the ordinary moments, the more familiar our own responses become. Then when something bigger comes along, we are not starting the conversation with our body for the first time.